The Bathroom Floor
by Nausicaa Smith
Summary: Gohan comforts a drunken Goku after his return to life following Buu's defeat.


On the Bathroom Floor

The living room was utterly trashed when Son Gohan came downstairs at two o'clock. Gohan was shocked, but less shocked than he would have been a few days ago. Considering the past week's events, and considering that his dad was back in the house after seven years, it was a little harder to surprise him these days. The sight awaiting him downstairs when he took a break from his Calculus, however, was completely unexpected. He'd only wanted some juice but he hadn't even made it to the kitchen because he'd stopped when he'd seen a sparkling on the hard cedar floor. He'd followed the sparkles around the rocking chair to where his mother's favorite antique table lamp had been knocked over and broken. There was glass everywhere. There was an empty liquor-type bottle on the floor by the recliner, and a shopping bag and his parents—sweet Kami, no!

Gohan sighed. They'd announced earlier that evening that they were going out. They'd dressed up (or at least as dressed up as they ever got) and Chichi had told Gohan not to wait up on them. Good for them, he'd decided. Gohan liked seeing his parents together again. He hadn't heard them come in from upstairs, but it looked like they'd barely made it through the door before they'd started fucking each other. The door was even still hanging open. Son Gohan took a deep, calming breath and found his center. Hey, at least they were both still clothed, mostly. Their boots were off; Mom's tights and Dad's dress shirt were thrown haphazardly at the bottom of the end table opposite the one with the broken lamp. Goku was still on Mom—(was he still _in_ her?!?)—halfway leaning off the couch, snoring softly. Chichi was sound asleep as well. Her right hand was dug deep into the ebony tangles of her husband's spiky hair, the left arm hooked around his neck in what would have been a most excellent choke hold had he been facing the other way. But his front was pressed right up against her front. One of her legs was locked around his waist, her green dress hiked up on her thighs. Judging by the strategic way they were lined up, it looked like they'd just unfastened his khakis and… well anyway, they couldn't stay like that. Poor little Goten would be traumatized if he came down for breakfast and found them.

But before he woke them Gohan padded stealthily into the kitchen and pulled an old Polaroid camera off the shelf over the fridge. He snapped a few pictures of them, one for his own collection, one for Bulma and a couple for blackmail purposes. Grinning to himself, he stashed the photos away and returned to the couch. He shook Dad a little, noticing with a shiver some deep scratches across his shoulders, surrounded by little half-moon-shaped cuts. Damn. Goku woke suddenly, raising his head to look at his son and gave a loud yelp—Chichi still had a grip on his hair.

"Shhh! Don't wake her up!" Gohan whispered urgently. He knew his mother would be horrified to have been found like this. Luckily she didn't stir, and Gohan carefully disentangled her slender fingers from her disoriented husband's hair. He couldn't believe he was doing this, but for some reason it wasn't as disturbing as it could have been. At least they weren't fighting or anything. And hey, if they never had sex then he and Goten wouldn't be here, right? Goku rose up a bit and looked around. When he saw Gohan, however, he pressed back down onto Chichi immediately, confirming Gohan's creepiest suspicions. Gohan started to laugh softly. "You guys are gonna have to go upstairs," he said. "You'll regret it in the morning if you stay on the couch all night."

"What time is it?" His father's speech was a little slurred. How much had they had to drink?

"A little after two. Be careful 'cause there's glass everywhere. I'm going to get a broom, okay?" Gohan left them. He retrieved a soft corn broom and dustpan from the dark kitchen closet and returned to find Goku standing unsteadily by the doorway. He'd fixed his pants and Mom's dress and now flipped on the light and Gohan could see that the marks on his back were worse than he'd thought. Creepy. He wordlessly picked up the ruined lamp and tossed it in the trashcan just inside the kitchen door. Goku, meanwhile, gathered up their boots and clothes and took them upstairs. Gohan was sweeping the sparkles into a pile when he returned to stand on the bottom step with a solid grip on the rails, looking dazed. Gohan took pity on a drunken Saiyan and went to him; took him by the arm and led him to the kitchen. He sat his father down at the kitchen table, fixed him a glass of apple juice and told him to stay put.

After the glass was swept up, Gohan peered out of the open door. The car was parked outside in its usual spot and nothing was amiss, so he shut the door and flipped the deadbolt into place. Of course nothing was likely to happen under the roof of the strongest being in the universe, but there was no point in taking needless risks. Gohan found the car's keys on the table in the hall and placed them on their hook. The shopping bag contained two empty bottles of vodka. Gohan picked up the third bottle off the floor—Wild Turkey—and returned to the kitchen. Goku looked up as he flipped on the light over the sink, and his eyes found the bottles that Gohan was holding up.

"Did you guys drink all of this by yourselves?" Goku nodded mutely, then looked as though he regretted it. A hand went to his temple and pressed there, but he got up from the table.

"I need to put Mommy upstairs," he started, but Gohan put one hand on his chest and shoved him back down easily.

"I'll take her." He said, and poured his father another glass of juice. "If you take her you might fall and hurt her."

Goku agreed and drank his juice. Gohan threw the bottles in the trash with the lamp and stepped back into the living room. His mother was still asleep. Her breathing was even, her coloring pretty normal. Gohan knew that she probably wasn't nearly as messed up as his dad; if Son Chichi could do nothing else, she could hold her liquor. He lifted her carefully, surprised at how little she weighed. It was only rarely that Gohan felt the need to be protective of his mother. He knew she could take care of herself perfectly well; hell she could give almost any trained fighter a run for their money. Of course she wasn't as powerful as his father or any of the other Z-Senshi, but her form was perfect, her techniques flawless. She was an excellent martial artist. He laid her carefully down upstairs and covered her with the extra blanket folded at the foot of her bed. Well, _their_ bed, he thought. He felt his way to their bathroom in the dark, cut on the light for her. He then exited his parents' room and shut the door behind him. He made sure to poke his head into his own room before he went back down. Goten was sound asleep, tangled in sweaty covers and pillows. Good. The kitchen was empty when he returned. He called for his father and received no response, so he entered the hallway and started looking in each room. Goten actually had his own bedroom down here, but he wouldn't sleep there. Mom blamed the TV, said that Goten had nightmares if he slept alone and that's why he wound up in Gohan's bed. But the truth was that Goten never had nightmares, and he was always in Gohan's bed. There was also a spare bedroom down here and the linen closet. He found his dad on his knees in the bathroom floor, in front of the toilet.

"Oh, Daddy—" Gohan ran a cup of water and handed it to him. Goku rinsed, spat, tried to get up but sank all the way down onto the floor now, pressing his forehead there probably because of the coolness of the tiles. "Do you want to stay here for a minute or two?" Goku made a pathetic little noise in response. Rolling his eyes, Gohan opened the mirrored medicine cabinet and rummaged around for a moment thinking that perhaps his mother was a bit too prepared for an accident. If there was one, how could she find what she needed among all the other crap? Cotton balls, rubber gloves, rolls and rolls of gauze and tape and so many different kinds of ointment. All covered in dust because of the past seven years of peace. Oh, well. Gohan found a bottle of rubbing alcohol and took it and a small bag of cotton balls and plopped down behind his father on the floor. The white cap bounced as he discarded it onto the sterile tiles, and the alcohol was cool on his fingers. Goku hissed and swore quietly as the liquid stung the marks on his back. "Shush," Gohan said. "It'll get infected."

"I know." To be the warrior that he was, Son Goku could be the biggest baby. Gohan almost felt sorry for him, but then he remembered how he'd just found them and didn't anymore. They'd interrupted his Calculus!

"She got you good. This one could use stitches."

"NO!"

"Just kidding, kidding!" Gohan pressed the cotton to another bloody spot and watched his father stiffen up again in pain. He pulled the cotton off and blew softly to dry the alcohol more quickly, easing the sting. Mom had taught him that when Goten was tiny. Probably there wouldn't be any infection at all, but Gohan had always heard the old wives' tale that fingernails were poisonous. Most of those old adages had at least a note of truth to them, so he continued. He thought probably that fingernails weren't poisonous, but they were an easy trap for dirt and germs. If you got scratched and the person's fingernails were dirty then the germs would be going directly into your bloodstream. That's probably where that saying came from.

"Where's Goten?"

"Asleep in my room." Gohan replaced the cap on the bottle of alcohol. "He's fine."

"Does he sleep there every night?"

"Yes." Gohan stood up and put the bottle and the cotton balls up. "After he was born Mom was really sick. She was still missing you, I guess." Gohan gathered up all the used cotton from the floor as he spoke and threw it away. "I was trying to look after her and him, and it always seemed like when she fell asleep, he woke up. And he hated his crib, hated to be left alone and he cried and cried and cried. I got fed up with it and just carried him with me wherever I went, and when I went to bed he came with me. He was three days old then, and he's been sleeping with me every single night since." He wet a washcloth and pressed it onto the back of his dad's neck. "He's spoiled as hell, you know. And it's my fault, I guess. Mom says he'll grow out of it."

"Wow." Goku sat up, took the washcloth and wiped his face with it. He was very pale.

"Are you okay?" Gohan squatted down in front of him, concerned again.

"Gohan," Goku sighed. Shit. The disappointed voice. Gohan waited for the reprimand, but it didn't come.

"Dad?" Goku looked… bothered. "What's the matter?"

"If I had known…" Goku began slowly, "About Goten. You wouldn't have had to go through all that." He stared at the tiles. "I'm sorry."

Gohan blinked. "Well, I'm not." He stated honestly. Goku looked up at him, and unexpectedly two matching pairs of eyes met. They both stared for a long moment.

"You've had no childhood at all, and that's my fault."

"It's the fault of circumstance."

"The reason I stayed away was so that you could be a normal kid for a while, not so you could raise one."

"Daddy, stop." Gohan stood up. This was ridiculous. "You're drunk."

"Yes. But I'm serious."

"So am I!" Gohan knelt back down in front of Dad and looked at him fiercely. There was no need for this conversation, but here it was so… so be it. "Look. No, look at me! Goten is… everything. If he wasn't here this whole time, I don't know what I might've done. Without you around, I had no reason to be here, no reason to care about anything. I didn't talk to Piccolo for days after the Cell games, and Mom was locked up in her room. I stayed in mine. We didn't eat, we didn't leave the house. Bulma called and called. Krillin came one day and nearly beat down the door. He went in to talk to Mom and then came and told me that she was sick—I hadn't known because I hadn't seen her—and he took her to the hospital. I was so scared, because I hadn't been watching her, but that's how we found out about Goten. And after that, it was like everything was okay again. You know, you're lucky you were already dead the day he was born because, really, she'd have killed you."

"I don't doubt it." Goku seemed vaguely amused, to Gohan's relief.

"Mom mellowed out a lot because of Goten. She needed him, and I needed him."

"But it still would have been easier if I'd been here." Goku looked sadly again at Gohan, who'd had enough.

"Yes. It would've. I won't lie, there've been times when _he_ needed you, and when I needed you because I didn't know what to do with him. 'Cause he won't talk to Mom, it's always me. Always with the questions, 'Why don't we have a Daddy, Gohan?' If I told him Daddy was in heaven, he'd say, 'Where's heaven, Gohan? Can we go visit him?' I couldn't tell him that Daddy was dead, because what four year old really understands what that means? I didn't." Goku pressed his head into his hands, and Gohan regretted letting this conversation get started. He breathed. "Look, it doesn't matter anymore. You're here now, and we're all together, and everything's okay. Let's get up, because it's cold down here, and go to bed. Goten will freak if he wakes up and I'm not in there."

Goku didn't really respond, but Gohan grabbed him by his elbows and pulled him to his feet. Gripped his hair with both hands, forced his father to meet his eyes. Foreheads pressed together, noses millimeters apart.

"It's okay, Dad. Really okay." He promised. Goku nodded, drunkenly, and together they exited the bathroom in silence and walked down the dim corridor. Gohan felt sleepiness overtaking him as he led Dad up the stairs and to his parents' room. He'd been all wound up to pull an all-nighter for school, but now he felt exhausted. Drained. He helped his dad change into pajama bottoms and a nightshirt to protect his back, pulled the covers up over him. As Gohan turned off the bathroom light he heard a soft murmur and heard his Mom and Dad move to touch each other. Ewww…. He made his exit quickly and pulled the door to softly behind him.

But when he turned he almost tripped over a dark-haired miniature of the man he'd just put to bed. He was clutching a stuffed purple kitty and looking at his _niisan_ with angry and tearful black eyes. With a resigned smile, Gohan scooped the baby up and carried him back to his room. Climbed into the bed and dismissed the worry about brushing his teeth first. He snuggled up to Goten and the purple kitty, and they fell asleep.

Damn. He'd never gotten his juice.


End file.
